Larry Fink told the world this morning that central banks are holding a floor under stock prices (but wouldn't expect to see large price increases) - and judging by the gamma imbalances in volatility-land, they are using options markets to unriggedly manage that implicit put. However, given the utter dominance of the machines in the market and any reaction when real volume hits stocks (always down), we thought, courtesy of Nanex, a gentle reminder of just how quickly the Fed put disappears would be useful in this new "we can never get hurt, valuations are within norms, there is no complacency" normal.

Mark Mobius is a superbull. In fact, he’s confident that the global markets are facing a five-year bull environment, as massive liquidity injections from central banks will start to do the trick. And then things will start to happen: Emerging markets will outperform. Nigeria will attract lots of attention. Even Zimbabwe is looking like an interesting investing opportunity. “The U.S. outperformed emerging markets last year, [and] now emerging markets are coming back and outperforming,” Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, said in an interview with MarketWatch on the sidelines of this year’s FundForum International in Monaco. “Short term it can be either the U.S., Europe or emerging, but if it’s long term then of course frontier and emerging markets will be much better bets.” Hosting a Sunday dinner at the exclusive Fairmont Hotel in Monte Carlo, the 77-year-old emerging-markets guru provided insight into his latest observations on the ever-changing environment for emerging markets. After more than 40 years in the game, he still gets excited about new developments in developing countries. But researching from a far is not a great option — many of the “next big thing” companies are unknown, so it takes lots of on-site digging to identity the most inspiring opportunities, he said. That’s also why he struggles to identify his home — partially based in Singapore and Hong Kong, Mobius spends most of his time traveling from conference to board meeting on a corporate jet. Not a private jet, mind you. Even this long-time investor was amazed by the number of private jets at the Nice airport, the closest major international hub to Monaco. Over the past two weeks, he’s been to eight countries, and his next stop is Russia — the most overlooked investment opportunity in emerging markets right now, he said.

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“Usually you want to go to places that are unpopular if you want to find overlooked and interesting trends. And obviously Russia is one place where the currency has gone down, the stock market has gone down, and yet the economy is reasonably good. Once this Ukraine situation is over, chances are you’ll see a recovery in that market, because they definitely want to move towards a market economy.”

And it doesn’t really matter which sector in Russia. Banking stocks, mining firms, oil companies and even some retailers are looking interesting, he observes. Mobius has spent more than 40 years focusing on emerging markets — an interest that goes back to his years at MIT, where he studied development economics. In the late 1980s he joined Franklin Templeton and set up the company’s first emerging-markets funds in the same year that the MSCI developed its first EM indexes. Now, more than 25 years later, he hasn’t lost faith in the traditional countries in this group, but he is increasingly keen on frontier markets — the new group of developing economies that have yet to take the economic and technological leap forward. This subset of lesser-developed countries has the same characteristics as the “original” emerging markets 25 years ago, according to Mobius, and is poised for rapid economic growth and lots of potential over the next quarter of a century.

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“Obviously Africa is the hot spot, because it is the biggest place in terms of numbers of countries — you’ve got a billion people — and it’s starting from a very low base. The economic growth rate is very high.”

Nigeria is one of his favorites, and Templeton recently invested in the country’s banks. With his newfound love for the west African country, Mobius joins his fellow emerging-markets expert Jim O’Neill, a.k.a. Mr. BRIC, who earlier this year told MarketWatch his latest bet was on mobile-payment company in Nigeria. Other frontier markets grabbing Mobius’s attention include the Ivory Coast, South Africa, Ghana and Zimbabwe. He also recently beefed up investments in Qatar, Kuwait and Duba. As an investor, the easiest way to get exposure to this new group is through an investment fund, for example the Templeton Frontier Markets fund TFMAX 0.00% . The fund is up 3.6% in 2014, outperforming the wider Templeton Developing Markets Trust TEDMX 0.13% , which is up only 0.4%.